Adrift in the Pacific-Two Years Holiday by Jules Verne

Author:Jules Verne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, General, Literary, Science Fiction, Fiction, Shipwrecks
ISBN: 9781410102157
Publisher: Fredonia Books
Published: 1991-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

END OF THE FIRST PART.

Part II

CHAPTER I—THE SEAL HUNT.

ALL had gone well at French Den in Gordon’s absence. Briant’s chief anxiety had been the inexplicable conduct of his brother, from whom he could still obtain no other answer than, —

‘There is nothing the matter with me.’

‘You will not tell me, Jack?’ Briant would say. ‘You are wrong! It would be a relief for you and for me! I can see you are getting more miserable and gloomier every day! I am your elder brother, and I have the right to know what is grieving you. What have you done?’

‘What have I done?’ Jack would say, as if unable to bear it any longer. You, perhaps, might forgive me, but the others—’

‘The others? the others? What are you talking about Jack?’

Jack would begin to cry, but all his brother could do only made him add, —

‘Later on you will know!’

After such a reply Briant’s anxiety may be imagined. What was there so serious that Jack could have done? At all costs he would find out if he could. As soon as Gordon came back Briant spoke to him about these half-confessions wrung from his brother, and even asked him to interfere.

‘What would be the use of that?’ asked Gordon. ‘Better leave Jack to himself. What he has done is doubtless some peccadillo, the importance of which he exaggerates. Wait till he tells you himself.’

Next morning the young colonists were all at work. And to begin with, Moko claimed attention to the state of his larder, which, notwithstanding that the snares were all set, was running low. Of large game there was none; and the boys devoted their first attention to making traps, in which they might capture vicugnas, peccaries, or guazulis, and waste no powder or shot. And during the whole month of November, answering to May in our latitudes, they were occupied in this work.

The guanaco and the vicugna and her little ones were being kept under the nearest trees tethered to long ropes, where they would get on very well till the winter, when a shelter of some sort would have to be contrived for them. This Gordon decided should be a shed with a high palisaded enclosure at the foot of Auckland Hill on the shore of the lake, a little beyond the door of the cave; and the work was at once put in hand.

A regular workshop was organized under Baxter’s directions. It was pleasant to see the boys more or less skilfully busy with the tools they had found in the carpenters chest—some with saws, some with axes, some with adzes. Although the work was at times rather irksome to them, yet they never complained. Medium-sized trees were cut down at the root had their branches cut away, and became the uprights of an enclosure large enough to hold a dozen animals in comfort. Sunk deeply in the ground and supported by cross-pieces, they were strong enough to defy the attempts of any of the animals to escape.

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